The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) awarded a $1,663,244 project grant under CFDA 93.855, Allergy and Infectious Diseases Research, to President and Fellows of Harvard College (Harvard Medical School) on March 1, 2025. The project aims to characterize innate immune signaling pathways in the tick Ixodes scapularis, which is a vector for Lyme disease and other emerging infectious diseases. The research will combine cell culture-based methods with in vivo assays in...
The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) awarded a $461,375 Project Grant under the Allergy and Infectious Diseases Research program (CFDA 93.855) to Yale University. The grant, effective July 1, 2025 through June 30, 2027, will fund a project to systematically identify interactions between Lyme disease bacteria (Borrelia burgdorferi) and the extracellular, secreted, and transmembrane proteins of its tick vector, Ixodes scapularis. The project aims to develop a...
This Project Grant award from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), under the Allergy and Infectious Diseases Research Federal Grant Program (CFDA 93.855), provides $423,106 over a 2-year period starting August 1, 2025 to characterize the roles of tick inhibitors of metalloproteases in the transmission of the Lyme disease agent by blacklegged ticks. The research aims to unveil the protease inhibition profiles of these tick proteins and elucidate their impacts on Lyme...
This $165,000 Project Grant award from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), under the Allergy and Infectious Diseases Research program (CFDA 93.855), supports the development of an improved transposon mutagenesis system for comprehensive genetic analysis of Borrelia burgdorferi, the bacterium that causes Lyme disease. The project aims to create a high-efficiency transposon insertional mutagenesis system and employ transposon sequencing techniques to conduct...
The Virginia Commonwealth University was awarded a $746,009 Project Grant from the Department of Health and Human Services National Institutes of Health National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. The grant falls under the Allergy and Infectious Diseases Research program (CFDA 93.855) to support research examining the cyclic-di-GMP signaling pathway and its role in the enzootic cycle of Lyme disease from November 18, 2022 through October 31, 2027. Specifically, the grant will fund...
This federal Project Grant award from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), under the Allergy and Infectious Diseases Research (CFDA 93.855) program, provides $745,295 to the University of California, Irvine (UCI) to conduct research on deciphering the innate and adaptive immune responses to the tick-borne Rickettsia parkeri bacteria. The key objectives are to: 1) comprehensively identify R. parkeri virulence factors required for survival in macrophages, 2) reveal...
This federal Project Grant award from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), under the Allergy and Infectious Diseases Research program (CFDA 93.855), provides $191,250 to Washington State University (WSU) to conduct research on the immune evasion mechanism of the Lyme disease spirochete, Borrelia burgdorferi. The award supports mechanistic studies on the role of genetic factors in the antigenic variation of the VlsE surface protein, a key mechanism for persistent...
This Project Grant award of $509,130 from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (CFDA 93.855 - Allergy and Infectious Diseases Research) supports research at the University of South Florida to investigate the global virulence regulatory network of the Lyme disease pathogen Borrelia burgdorferi. The key objectives are to: 1) Define the BosR regulon and characterize how BosR-regulated genes contribute to the infectious cycle of B. burgdorferi; 2) Examine the biological roles of...
This Project Grant award from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (CFDA 93.855 - Allergy and Infectious Diseases Research) provides $192,500.00 to the University of South Alabama to conduct research on the mechanisms of central nervous system invasion by the Lyme disease spirochete, Borrelia burgdorferi. The key objectives are to: (1) Determine the role of the blood-cerebrospinal fluid barrier as a site for B. burgdorferi and immune cell entry into the central nervous...
This Project Grant award from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), under the Allergy and Infectious Diseases Research program (CFDA 93.855), provides $429,000.00 to The Medical College of Wisconsin, Inc. to conduct research on the effect of the Borrelia burgdorferi-SIRPalpha interaction on the immune response. The goal is to investigate how the pathogen's ability to evade phagocytic clearance through molecular mimicry of "don't eat me" signals subverts the...
This Project Grant award from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), under the Allergy and Infectious Diseases Research program (CFDA 93.855), provides $518,099 to the University of Maryland, College Park to investigate a cross-species signaling system in tick immunity and development. The research aims to define how interactions between a novel tick protein (ISCDL) and the tick cell surface receptor DOME1 impact tick immune responses and development, either individually or in cooperation with the mammalian cytokine interferon-gamma. It also seeks to elucidate the molecular mechanisms by which two antimicrobial proteins (SP10 and DAE2) induced through the DOME1-JAK-STAT pathway limit Borrelia burgdorferi, the Lyme disease pathogen, in ticks. The 5-year project runs from July 2025 through June 2030 and has the potential to contribute to future interventions against tick-borne infections.